"It was constantly changing. He had a bedroom and shared a bathroom and common area, but he was moved around a lot, and his bedrooms kept getting smaller and smaller," Becker said. "It felt like every time I went to see him, the living conditions got smaller and the common area kept shrinking."

Cassella started in a room downstairs with a shared kitchen and a common area with a couch and television. As new bedrooms gobbled up common area, he was moved to the top floor, where there was no common area and a small kitchenette, Becker said.

Cassella lived on $1,800 a month from Social Security. He paid $550 for rent, and then gave the Brunos tips to run errands, such as picking up mail or getting medicine at the pharmacy.

With tips, he was paying more like $800 monthly, according to canceled checks Chamberlain went through after he died. He also paid between $400 and $500 for medicine and paid $50 a month for health insurance.

Cassella experienced some theft in the home. "He had a beefy lock on his door," Becker said.

"It makes me angry. If you are taking people in who clearly have problems and need supervision — if you want to be serious about housing people like that, you have to have rules," Becker-Martinez said.

The family tried multiple times to move Cassella from the house — they even had a plan to move him to Utah in the spring — but he was resistant to change.

"He was kind of the caretaker of the roommates. He made tight bonds with these people. They understood each other," said Becker-Martinez, of Coalville, Utah.

Chamberlain said it killed the family to see how he was living.

"He was two people. He had a business side, and a mental illness side that had no idea of the deplorable, risky conditions he was living in," Chamberlain said.

The Brunos have been housing vulnerable people in questionable living conditions for years with few consequences.

In 1992, Louis Bruno and Dr. Shyam Mahajan opened People's Personal Care Home on Second Street in Stroudsburg. The facility was granted a state operating license in Bruno's name, and clients were referred to the home by mental health officials and the Agency on Aging. Bruno leased the facility from Mahajan under "No Problem Management Ltd."

In April 1993, People's Personal Care Home's license was revoked by the state Department of Public Welfare because of 77 violations found by inspectors. The violations described filth and undocumented medical care. Some patients were getting medicine meant for others.

In May 1993, Bruno moved some patients out of state and others moved to mental health facilities; Mahajan was accused of violating narcotic, insurance and Medicare statutes by the state attorney general; and the Monroe County district attorney opened an investigation.

The care home closed abruptly.

Later, Keystone Residential Services opened in Bushkill.

No care offered. No license needed. No state oversight.

But the renters — like Rudy Cassella — were similar to those ones who lived in People's Personal Care home.

Cassella grew up in Jersey City, N.J., "the smartest of three kids," Chamberlain said. He graduated from college with a degree in business administration in 1966. He was always fascinated with history and loved to put model trains together.

History remained a passion throughout his life. He loved to read and had a lot of newspapers, magazine and books.

"His IQ was off the charts," Becker said.

He worked at Dean Witter on Wall Street as a computer programmer on the company's mainframe. Working three days a week, he earned $66,000, good money in the late 1960s.

He had a stuttering problem that drove his parents crazy, but when he drank, he did not stutter.

"He was so smart. They wanted him to be a doctor," Chamberlain said.

Cassella drank excessively during that time. In 1978, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and wet brain — a type of brain damage related to alcoholism.

"Something happened to him. He lost his job, and he just deteriorated," Chamberlain said.

After the January fire, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Human Services Licensing, under the Department of Public Welfare, wondered if Keystone Residential Services was operating a group home, but an investigation found that it was not operating as a facility that would be regulated by the Department of Public Welfare.

A facility is only considered operating illegally if there are four or more adults receiving care in a group setting. Keystone did not need a license because the Brunos were not giving care.

The licensing issue has come up for the Brunos before. In 2002, more than a dozen residents of the Keystone apartments were interviewed by state authorities, who had received complaints the Brunos were "warehousing" elderly clients.

The Brunos said then that the residents were not clients but just tenants for whom the Brunos ran occasional errands.

"You have to check on people that have those sorts of problems. There should have been rules," Becker-Martinez said. "If you want to house these people, you really have to care about them. Not just take their Social Security money. It's like these people get shoved under the rug."

The Brunos and the insurance company believe the fire was Cassella's fault, according to Chamberlain.

"They knew he was a chain smoker. He fell asleep, and other residents had to go in his room and put out spark fires. There was no fire alarm in his room. They should not have allowed smoking," Chamberlain said.

The state police fire marshal completed the investigation and classified the cause of the fire as undetermined because of the level of damage, Trooper Connie Devens said.

The fire happened Jan. 9. Chamberlain said she asked the Brunos for the rest of Cassella's rent money back, to help with burial expenses, but they refused.

This month, Chamberlain received a check from Nationwide Insurance for $1,000 that simply noted, "Re: loss."

"Homes like this will remain to collect individuals with mental health problems as long as rents are paid, tips are given, and no one complains enough," Chamberlain said. "We will be reading once again of another tragedy, and who will be the landlords?"